The Friends of SEHBC

St. Edmund Boat Club is supported by over 200 former club members willing on our rowers to succeed at any opportunity presented to them.

One in six Aularians rowed during their time at Oxford. Their enthusiasm for the sport continues with the Friends of the St Edmund Hall Boat Club, a registered charity, dedicated to supporting the boat club. Rowing is expensive - but the rewards are priceless - and the Friends give financial support by purchasing new boats and blades, paying for coaching, and contributing towards the cost of training camps, to give just a few examples. But moral support is just as important: every current Hall rower knows that there is a cadre of former Hall rowers wanting all of our boats to succeed.

The aims of the Friends are to:

further the interests of the Boat Club by helping all Hall crews to achieve more bumps in Men’s and Women’s Divisions in Torpids and Eights, with the ultimate goal of the respective 1st VIIIs reaching the Head of the River;

give Aularian rowers an opportunity to keep in contact with current College rowing, and other Aularian rowers by means of a termly newsletter, dinners and other social events.

Since they were established in 1992, the Friends have raised:

over £500,000 in the form of donations and Gift Aid

more than £60,000 by way of sponsorship

and have spent:

nearly £250,000 on equipment

over £175,000 on coaching and training camps

with most of the balance invested in a fund so that the Friends can eventually become self-supporting from donations, sponsorship and investment income.

The Friends of St Edmund Hall Boat Club always need more friends to help support Hall rowing well into the future. You can sign up as a Student Friend at a very advantageous rate: ask the Captains of Boats for an enrolment form.

To mark the Boat Club’s 150th in 2011, Off with the Gun was published, a miscellany of anecdotes and stories taken from the Boat Club’s archives; a revised and updated second edition was published in 2016. Copies can be obtained via this link: